VITACEAK. 259 



acute or short-acuminate at the apex, subcordate or rounded at the base, the 

 veins slender, the petioles 5-15 mm. long; racemes slender, pubescent, 5-15 cm. 

 long; pedicels clustered, pubescent, 1-3 mm. long; calyx pubescent, about 1.5 

 mm. long; corolla yellowish, 2-3 mm. wide, the petals ovate, acute; fruit reticu- 

 late-veined, 3-winged, 8-10 mm. broad including the wings which are broader 

 than the body, rarely wingless. 



Coppices, Andros, New Providence : Florida ; Cuba to Tortola and Grenada ; 

 Jamaica ; continental tropical America. CHEW-STICK. 



Family 2. VITACEAE Lindl. 

 GRAPE FAMILY. 



Climbing vines or erect shrubs, with copious watery sap, nodose joints, 

 alternate petioled leaves, and small regular greenish perfect or polygamo- 

 dioecious flowers, in panicles, racemes or cymes. Calyx entire or 4-5- 

 toothed. Petals 4-5, separate or coherent, valvate, caducous. Filaments 

 subulate, inserted at the base of the disk or between its lobes; disk some- 

 times obsolete or wanting; anthers 2-celled. Ovary 1, generally immersed 

 in the disk, 2-6-celled ; ovules 1-2 in each cavity, ascending, anatropous. 

 Fruit a 1-6-celled berry (commonly 2-celled). Seeds erect; testa bony; 

 raphe generally distinct; endosperm cartilaginous; embryo short. About 

 10 genera and over 500 species, widely distributed. 



Hypogynous disk of the flower annular or cup-shaped ; leaves simple or 3-foliolate. 

 Petals cohering into a caducous cap. 1. Vitis. 



Petals distinct, spreading. 2. Cissus. 



Hypogynous disk wanting or obsolete ; leaves digitately 5-7- 



foliolate in our species. 3. Parthenocissus. 



1. VITIS [Tourn.] L. Sp. PI. 202. 1753. 



Woody vines, rarely shrubby, mostly with tendrils. Leaves simple, usually 

 palmately lobed or dentate. Stipules mainly small, caducous. Flowers mostly 

 dioecious, or polygamo-dioecious, rarely perfect. Petals hypogynous or 

 perigynous, coherent in a cap and deciduous without expanding. Disk annular 

 or cup-shaped. Ovary 2-celled, rarely 3-4-celled; style very short, conic; ovules 

 2 in each cavity. Berry globose or ovoid, few-seeded, pulpy, edible in most 

 species. [The ancient Latin name.] About 40 species, natives of warm and 

 temperate regions. Type species: Vitis vinifera L. 



1. Vitis Munsoniana Simpson; Planch, in DC. Monogr. 5: 615. 1887. 

 Muscadinia Munsoniana Small, Fl. SE. IT. S. 757. 1903. 



A vine up to 6 m. long or more, the young twigs glabrous, the bark smooth, 

 the pith continuous through the nodes. Leaves suborbicular or reniform, thin, 

 but rather firm in texture, 4-8 cm. broad, coarsely dentate, cordate at the base, 

 glabrous above, pubescent in the axils of the veins beneath, the petioles as 

 long as the blades ior shorter; tendrils simple, very slender when young; 

 panicles 2-8 cm. long; berries globose, 1-1.5 cm. in diameter, nearly black, 

 acid, the skin thin, the seeds 3-5 mm. long. 



Coppices, pine-lands and scrub-lands, Abaco, Great Bahama, Andros, New Provi- 

 dence : Georgia ; Florida. Reported by Dolley as V. caribaca DC. ; recorded by 

 Hitchcock, Coker and Mrs. Northrop as V. rotundifoUa Michx. WILD GRAPE. 



